--_The Miller's Daughter_.

Many specialists, in distinct professions, visited the farm in the
course of every twelve months, and each appeared at the season when
his particular services were likely to be required. Among these an
ancient grafter was one of the most important, and April was the month
which brought him to Aldington. In January we had usually beheaded
some trees that we considered not worth leaving as they were: these
would be trees producing inferior and nondescript cider apples, or
perry pears. And we had already cut, and laid in a shady place, half
covered with soil, the young shoots of profitable sorts to furnish the
grafts for converting the beheaded trees into valuable producers.

The old man's function was to prepare the grafts, and unite them in
deftly-cut notches with their new parents. His was a rosy-cheeked and
many-wrinkled face, reminding one of an apple stored all the winter,
and, in his brown velveteen coat, with immense pockets, he made a
notable figure. He loved a chat and was always happy and
communicative, and his arrival seemed as much a herald of spring as
that of the welcome cuckoo. He was paid "by the piece,"
"three-halfpence a graft and cider," quantity not specified, but an
important part of the bargain because of a superstition that grafts
"unwetted" would not thrive! Some of these large trees would have ten
or more limbs requiring separate grafting, and therefore they earned
him a considerable sum, but it is surprising how soon they make a new
head, come into bearing, and repay with interest the cost of the work.

He was a thoughtful old man and a moralist. I can see him now,
standing with his snuff-box open ready in his hand, and saying very
solemnly, "I often thinks as an apple-tree is very similar to a child,
for you know, sir, we're told to train up a child in the way he shall
go, and when he is old he will not depart therefrom." He then
refreshed himself with a mighty pinch of snuff, closing his box with a
snap that emphasized his air of complete conviction.

I think the sheep-dipper was one of the early arrivals. He brings with
him an apparatus which provides a bath, and a kind of gangway, rising
at an angle from it, upon which the sheep can stand after immersion,
to allow the superfluous liquid to find its way back into the bath;
each sheep is lifted by two men into the bath containing insecticide,
and has an interval for drippin